


Crazy Little Thing Called Love

by Pastaaddict



Series: Heartbeat [8]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Regrets, Wedding, under same name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-21 09:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastaaddict/pseuds/Pastaaddict
Summary: Natalya is haunted by her past misdeeds as she prepares to marry her soulmate.





	1. Here Comes The Bride.

**Author's Note:**

> This is about Natalya's wedding and how she became so insane.

** _**Here Comes The Bride** _ **

 

_ Natalya... _

 

Would he come? She would not blame him if he stayed away, after everything she had done. Even now, she wondered how she could have been so out of control, so ….. there was no other way of saying it ….. so  _ insane! _ Natalya knew it all happened, remembered every part, as much as she would like to forget it now, all the pain and misery that she had caused in her delusion, even the death of an innocent man who had never even met her, let alone done anything to her. All for the love of the one man she had no business loving, at least in that way.

She lay in her bed, staring at the dress bag, knowing what it contained. It was the morning of her wedding day and it was a day she believed should not be happening. Not because she hated the groom! Well, at one point she had but that had been part of the delusion too and she now loved Sergei Mikhaylov but she was scared that it would turn into an obsession as well. Besides, she thought he would be better off without someone as broken as her and she also thought that she did not deserve Sergei after everything that she had done but they were soulmates so he was stuck with her so all she could do was try not to slip back into madness and lose Sergei the way she had lost her brother.

There was a knock and her bedroom door opened and her older half-sister, Katyusha came in. Someone else who's forgiveness Natalya felt that she did not deserve after Natalya had shot her while trying to shoot Wang Yao. She could have killed Katyusha and the fact that she had not been the intended target was no excuse Now that she was more mentally stable and less irrational, she knew that she had gone into an innocent man's home, waving a gun around, attacking an innocent teenager and attempting to murder a blind man in cold blood, accidentally shooting Katyusha when she tried to stop her. Natalya would not blame Katyusha for never wanting to see, let alone speak to her again but Katyusha's heart and forgiving spirit were boundless. She knew her sister had been ill and was still considered so. Diagnosed with an excessive attachment disorder, Natalya was being given therapy and had been taking anti-psychotic drugs to help manage her condition and she was doing much better these days and Katyusha did not want to see her sister slip back into insane obsession.

"Time to get up, Natalya!" Katyusha said, cheerfully. "You have a big day ahead." Natalya sat up in her bed, her newly-grown back, platinum blonde hair mussed from sleep. She had cut it to disguise herself as a male to get access to the plane that Ivan had been sending his soulmate and his soulmate's younger brother to safety on. She had sabotaged the plane, despite the fact that there had been others on board and the plane had crashed. She was lucky she had not killed everybody but someone had died, not her target but the pilot who had done everything to get everyone else down alive and paid for it with his life. A stab of guilt hit Natalya in the heart, guilt that she would be having a wedding when that innocent man never lived to find his soulmate and there was someone out there that would never find his or hers. All because of her!

"Natalya!" Katyusha's voice called again.

"I'm awake," Natalya called back and pulled the covers back as Katyusha came up to the bed.

"Time to get up!" Katyusha announced. "Eduard is making breakfast so we'll eat that and then we'll get you ready for your big day while he goes to help Sergei." Natalya looked at her older half-sister, wondering how she could be so forgiving. She knew that Eduard was not and was here under protest.

"How can you stand to be near me, Katyusha?" Natalya asked. "After everything I did, how can you even stand to be in the same room?" Natalya could not raise her head because of the shame she felt but Katyusha sat beside her, pulling her into a comforting hug.

"You weren't well, Natalya," she replied. "You were ill and irrational. You're so much better now."

Yes, Natalya had been sick. She had been dragged into the mental institution her father had arranged for her, kicking and screaming, despite agreeing to the arrangement, and she was eventually drugged when she refused to calm down. She woke a day later and, a few days after that, the doctor had come to see her. Given her behaviour, she was hand-cuffed to a chair in the doctor's office as he began the first of her sessions with him.

 

_ " Tell me about your brother, Natalya," the doctor said. "Tell me how you feel about him." Natalya raised her short haired head and looked at the doctor down her nose. _

_ " How could you ever understand!" she snorted. "No one understands, not even Big Brother, but he will! Once that interloper is gone, Big Brother will understand everything!" _

" _What will he understand?"_

_ " That we're meant to be together! Like we always were! It's been me and Big Brother since we were children, since Mother died …." _

_ " How did you feel when your mother died?" the doctor asked, finding that little slip interesting. Natalya just pressed her lips together and refused to say anything more about that. The doctor changed tack. _

_ " Natalya," he said. "You heart beats for Sergei Mikhaylov and your brother's heart beats for Wang Yao ….." He got no further as Natalya tried to launch herself out of the chair at him, stopped only by the handcuffs. _

_ " DON'T MENTION THAT DEMON'S NAME IN MY PRESENCE!" she screamed, trying to pull her wrists from the handcuffs but they stayed locked up in them. "That sorcerer put a spell on Big Brother, he's not his soulmate and Mikhaylov is not mine. Big Brother and I are soulmates, no one else's!" _

_ " Then why didn't your heart start beating for your brother?" the doctor pointed out, ignoring the insane notion of brother and sister being soul mates for a moment. "Why did your heart beat for someone else? Why does your fate lie elsewhere?" _

_ " IT DOESN'T!" she screamed again. "Fate got it wrong. Big Brother is my soulmate. Mother told me before she died ….." Then she stopped as if she realised that she was about to reveal too much. _

_ " What did you mother tell you, Natalya?" the doctor asked. He found it hard to believe that any mother would tell her daughter that her soulmate should be her own brother. "Maybe if you tell me what your mother said, I might understand why you believe your soulmate is your brother." Natalya squeezed her lips tight and refused to say anything more, no matter what the doctor did to try and encourage her to talk. He had orderlies take her back to her room and wrote notes, suspecting an attachment disorder and prescribed some moderate anti-psychotic drugs to start with, beginning immediately but he had to find out exactly what Natalya's mother had told her before she died. _

 

A few years down the line, Natalya now realised that she had misinterpreted what her mother had said on her death-bed but she had been a grieving child of four, losing her mother so thinking rationally was not high on the list of things to do. But still, she should have been able to understand when she got older what her mother had actually meant but Natalya had held on to the interpretation she made as a child, clinging to her brother like a clinging vine. Like poison ivy. Until he felt he had to run. Her brother had felt like he needed to escape and she had done that to him.

Katyusha managed to drag her downstairs for breakfast after making sure she took her medication, under the eye of her disapproving brother-in-law. Eduard did not want his soulmate within ten miles of Natalya, sibling or not but Katyusha would not abandon her little sister in her time of need. Or on her wedding day.

When breakfast was done, Katyusha took Natalya back upstairs and sent her off for a shower while she got everything ready for Natalya's hair and make up and carefully taking Natalya's dress out of the bag and checking it for creases as she waited for Natalya.

Natalya stood under the warm water, letting it cleanse her skin and hair, wishing it could cleanse her conscience as well. Her misdeeds were always there, just behind her eyes and had been from the moment she began to realise exactly what she had done and how wrong it had been.

_ They had to make her take the drugs at first. She refused any medication that they gave her, usually violently but they made her take it and she still had to have sessions with the doctor. After a few month, she began to open up a little and speak more about her childhood. She was also less inclined to yell or scream at Sergei when he came to visit her (strongly encouraged by her father) and did not shout at the doctor when he mentioned Sergei's name. _

_ Natalya was still obsessed with Ivan and still angered at any mention of Yao but it was not as rage fuelled and, finally, the doctor got to the bottom of what Natalya's mother had told her on her deathbed. _

 

" _Don't go, Mama!" a four year old Natalya begged her frail mother, holding her mother's hand as she lay on her bed. No one told Natalya her mother was dying but somehow she knew that her mother was going away somewhere and she would never be coming back. "Please don't leave me alone!" Her mother gave a weak smile._

_ " You won't be alone, my sweet one," she told her young daughter. "I can't stay but you will never be alone. You have your family and, one day, you'll have your soulmate." _

_ " What's a soulmate?" Natalya asked. She had heard the term before but no one had ever explained to her what it actually meant. _

_ " Your soulmate is the one you're destined to spend your life with," her mother explained. "They'll be by your side throughout everything, good times and bad. And you will find that person, Natalya, your heart will tell you so listen to it." _

_ Maybe the pain was the reason why Natalya's mother did not tell her that her heart would tell her she had found her soul-mate by beating but whatever the reason, what her mother had told her stayed in four year old Natalya's mind. _

_ After their mother died, the three sibling banded together but Ivan and Natalya, being closer in age, clung together the most and, in the coming years, Ivan was there for Natalya as they grew and Natalya remembered what her mother had told her. _

_ " They'll be by your side throughout everything, good times and bad" _

_ And so began the delusion that Ivan was her soulmate and her whole life revolved around him as her excessive attachment disorder began to develop. And when Ivan became friends with others, jealously consumed Natalya as his attention began to be diverted away from her. She became convinced that they were trying to take her soulmate from her and that she was within her rights to do whatever it took to stop them. _

_ Ivan's first friend, Mikhal Klokov was Natalya's first victim when Ivan did not spend the afternoon with her, instead going to Mikhal's house to play. Ivan had always had trouble making friends as being the son of the famous, or rather infamous, General Dmitri Arlovsky tended to put others off but young Mikhal was braver than most and approached Ivan. Ivan was very happy to finally have a friend and began to spend more time with Mikhal, much to the anger of his little sister. Natalya saw Mikhal as a brother-thief and interloper, one she intended to remove. _

_ No one knew quite what happened. It was fortunate that Mikhal ran into the side of the truck when the brakes failed on his bike, instead of in front of it and had Mikhal been closer, he might have ended up under the wheels. As it was, Mikhal was badly hurt, suffering several broken bones and a concussion but another casualty of the accident was Ivan and Mikhal's friendship as Mikhal began to avoid Ivan. No one knew that he had been told to by his parents after they received a note that said "Next time, he might not be so lucky. Stay away from Ivan Arlovsky!" _

_Mikhal's parents did not know who did not want their son being friends with Ivan. The only thing they could think of was that the General did not want his son associating with anyone he considered beneath him and they were not going up against the infamous General Winter._ _Ivan was confused and somewhat saddened at the unexplained loss of his friend while Natalya was delighted that her plan had worked._

_ As they grew older, Natalya's obsession with Ivan became worse and Ivan had increasing trouble keeping any friends that he made as they all met with freak accidents and mysteriously broke contact with him afterwards and the rumour spread that being friends with General Arlovsky's son would bring bad luck. _

_ Ivan's only constant companion was Natalya but Ivan was beginning to find her presence excessive and smothering so when he went to college at the age of 17, it was a relief for Ivan to have some space. That was when he met Saskia Anosova. _

_ Saskia was a similar age to Ivan with long, black hair and deep violet eyes who had seen Ivan sit on his own in the cafeteria for a few weeks before approaching the boy who seemed very lonely to her. She went to the counter to get her lunch and then walked up to the table where the lone boy sat. _

_ " Privet!" she greeted and Ivan looked up at her in surprise. "Do you mind if I sit here?" _

_ " No, I do not mind," Ivan replied, looking at the pretty girl as she sat down. Even when he went to college, people seemed to give him a wide berth so the fact that this girl approached him was a surprise. He was disappointed that his heart did not start beating when he looked into her eyes but he was happy that someone wanted to talk to him. "My name is Ivan Arlovsky." _

_ " I'm Saskia Anosova," she smiled at him. "I'm studying economics and business courses." _

_ " I am studying mathematics and computers," Ivan replied. "I am also training to be a pilot." _

_ " A pilot," Saskia said, taking a sip of her drink. "That's great!" They talked some more about family and home and Ivan felt happy that he had a new friend. _

* * *

_ Natalya watched Ivan from afar for a few more weeks as he went around his college with his 'friend' but she was not fooled. That slut was after her brother! Her soulmate! And Natalya would stop her. _

_ Natalya took to following Saskia and all she needed was a moment, a second when she was alone. And she got that when she followed Saskia to the college library and she went up to the roof to wait. She pried a heavy piece of loose stone from the edge of the roof and waited for Saskia to leave the library. _

_ It took two hours but Natalya was patient as she looked down over the door of the building, the light inside occasionally throwing out the odd shadow as someone left the building. Many times Natalya had lifted the stone, only to pull it back when it turned out to not to be Saskia but eventually Natalya's patience paid off. _

_ A shadow appeared, cast across the road by the light streaming from inside the building's front door and Natalya readied the stone and Saskia stepped out of the building below Natalya. As Saskia wrapped her scarf around her neck, Natalya lined up the stone above her head and released it. _

_ Saskia turned and was moving away when the stone struck her in the shoulder. She screamed in pain as her clavicle shattered under the impact and drove her to the floor. Natalya hissed in frustration that she had not completely remove Saskia from Ivan's life and she had no chance for a second try as people ran out of the library to assist the injured girl but Saskia would be out of Ivan's life for a while. As she made her way out of the building without being seen, Natalya decided it was time for she and her brother to finally face their destiny. _

* * *

_ " What are you doing, Natalya?" Ivan demanded as he pushed her away after she passionately kissed him. "A sister does not kiss her brother that way!" _

_ " Don't deny it, brother!" she replied, trying to kiss him again. "We are destined to be together. Marry me, brother and it will make our hearts beat! Marry me, marry me, marry me ….." _

_ " You are insane!" Ivan exclaimed and he gave her another push. "How can you believe that is normal? Our hearts will never beat because siblings are never soulmates and I will never love you that way!" _

_ " Who will love you that way, brother?" Natalya demanded. "That little hussy who thought to steal your affection from me. She couldn't tempt you from her hospital bed, could she!" _

_ " It was you!" Ivan was horrified. "You dropped that rock on Saskia! You almost killed her and all she wanted to be was my friend. How could you do such a thing?" _

_ " She didn't want to just be your friend," Natalya hissed. "None of them wanted to just be your friend. They wanted you for themselves and take you from me but I wasn't going to allow it!" Ivan realised just what had been befalling his friends. _

_ " Everyone who wanted to be my friend!" he breathed. "Everyone who was hurt! That was you!" He backed away from her and ran. _

* * *

Natalya lowered her head under the warm spray of the shower, hoping against hope that it could wash away everything that she had done but deep down inside knowing it could never do that. Once her medication had brought her down to the level where she could think rationally, her sessions with her doctor picked through everything. He made her understand her misinterpretation of her mother's last words to her, that Ivan was always there for her because that was what siblings did and it did not make him her soulmate. How it all had made her misinterpret Ivan's friends as threats and what she tried to do to Saskia …...

It was only by sheer luck that Saskia had not died that day for which Natalya was grateful. She already had the blood of one innocent person on her hands and it could have been more. Everybody on that plane she sabotaged could have died had the late pilot not been as good as he had been. All to kill her brother's real soulmate.

The weight of Natalya's sins sat heavy on her shoulders and her mental illness did little to mitigate her in her eyes. All she had done was turn her brother's life into a lonely existence and harmed innocent people, killing one and she would have to live with that for the rest of her life.

"Natalya!" Katyusha's voice called through the bathroom door. "It's time to get ready. You don't want to be late for your own wedding!" Her wedding. To Sergei Mikhaylov, a subordinate of her father's and her true soulmate, although she had hardly been happy at the time he started her heart beating but, that being said, neither had he.

* * *

_ Sergei …... _

Sergei stood under the shower, the water plastering his black hair against his head as he got ready to marry his soulmate. When he first met Natalya, he never thought this day would come and never thought he would ever agree to it. Never would he have thought that his superior's crazy daughter would have been the one who would have made his heartbeat and, to be honest, when he discovered Natalya was his soulmate, he had not been best pleased.

Sergei was not an angel by any means, you were not attached to General Dmitri 'Winter' Arlovsky's military staff without doing some pretty questionable things but what he did, he did on orders and never did it involve harming the innocent. Natalya's insane behaviour had revolted Sergei and, at the time, he wondered why Fate hated him so much.

A lot had changed since then. Natalya's medication and treatment had altered her behaviour completely and, with each step toward sanity, Natalya had worked her way into his heart. It had not been easy at first, Natalya had cursed him every time she saw him, still lost in the delusion of being the soulmate of Ivan, her older brother and she initially resisted anything to the contrary but, as her sessions with her psychiatrist unravelled the root cause of her obsession and the medication help her calm enough to see what she had done and face the consequences, they began to reach an understanding and grew closer.

Trust was hard for Sergei and he had to trust that Natalya was not faking her recovery and she would not relapse. The first part, he had just about managed but the second was out of their hands but, if Natalya kept up her medication, they could just about make it.

He climbed out of the shower, grabbing a towel to dry his body and hair as he made his way to his bedroom where his wedding suit was hanging ready for him to change into. Eduard would be here soon, playing reluctant Best Man as he would be family to Sergei very soon. In Sergei's line of work as General Winter's subordinate, he did not make many friends, just associates. Eduard was not happy to be playing this role, Sergei knew but it was nothing against him. Eduard had still not forgiven his sister-in-law for shooting his wife, accidentally maybe but Eduard was still understandably sour about it.

After drying his hair, he put on his underwear and wrapped a dressing gown around himself and went to get some breakfast while he waited for Eduard to arrive.

* * *

Natalya sat in front of her bedroom mirror while Katyusha arranged her hair, brushing it through and pinning it up and Natalya looked at her reflection. It was different to what it had been in the past, the intense stare and a gleam of what she now realised had been madness. Now her eyes were softer but the madness had been replaced with haunted remorse. Katyusha hummed as she pinned the last lock of hair into place and began to apply a light touch of make-up to Natalya's face. She did not need much, her skin was almost flawless and she looked up at Katyusha as she applied face powder to her sister's face.

"Why?" Natalya asked, causing Katyusha to stop.

"Why what?" Katyusha asked.

"After everything I did," Natalya replied. "Why are you doing all this for me? I drove our brother away, shot you, killed an innocent man and almost killed many more, including our brother's soulmate and brother. How can you stand to be anywhere near me? I know Eduard can't and he's right to!" Katyusha just hugged her sister.

"Oh Natalya!" she sighed. "How many more times? You were sick! I know that and I know how much you've punished yourself since you began to recover. I know you didn't intend to shoot me and, deep down, Eduard knows that too. He just has trouble coming to terms with what happened."

"I'm not surprised," Natalya said. "I could have killed you and I did intend to kill Yao. I did kill an innocent stranger and his family will never forgive me for that, not that they should."

"I can't speak for them," Katyusha replied. "I can only speak for myself and I forgive you!" Katyusha let her sister go and began to finished Natalya's make-up.

"Let's get you ready for your future husband, okay?" Katyusha smiled at Natalya and Natalya smiled back, thinking of Sergei. As the madness receded, the love that soulmates inevitably feel for each other began to seep into her heart and, as the saner Natalya emerged, Sergei began to finally fall for his soulmate.

 

 


	2. Will He Be There?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natalya is afraid that he won't show up.

 

** _**Will He Be There?** _ **

 

_ Sergei had not visited Natalya often and only did so at the 'urging' of General Arlovsky because the last time he came to see her, she cursed him and tried to attack him, wishing him dead so he was no longer her soulmate. So it came as a surprise when he got a message that she wanted to see him. Natalya was waiting for him in the visitor's room at the institution, watched over by an orderly and nervously pacing the space as she anticipated his arrival. She had not reached that place that she was willing to fall into his arms and declare her undying soulmate love but she was aware that he was not to blame for anything and she felt that she should apologise for her behaviour as her psychiatrist suggested, to face everyone she had wronged. _

_ She had written a letter to Captain Maurier's family, expressing her heartfelt regrets at her actions and how she would carry the guilt of his death for the rest of her life. She said she did not beg for their forgiveness as she did not expect them to be able to forgive her. They did not reply and she did not expect them to. _

_ She turned as the door opened slowly and Sergei came in with an expression on his face like he was expecting anything and everything to happen and Natalya did not blame him. Most previous visits had ended in attacks and death threats and even the orderly looked ready to jump in if she made the wrong move. _

_ " Thank you for coming," she said as Sergei came closer and they stood opposite each other. There was an awkward moment in which neither said anything. _

_" I was surprised to get your request," Sergei finally broke the silence. "I was under the impression that you didn't want me anywhere near you." Natalya looked down at her lap as she remembered everything that she had ever said to him, none of it very pleasant._

_ " I know," she replied. "And I can imagine I'm the last person you want to talk to, after everything I've done and I'm surprised you even came. I've written a letter to Ivan but he hasn't responded, not that I blame him! I tried to kill his soulmate and almost succeeded, why would he want to have anything to do with me?" _

_ Sergei considered Natalya carefully. She seemed to finally recognise that what she had done was off-the-charts insane and was showing remorse for her actions. Problem! Was it genuine or was she just telling him what she thought he wanted to hear? _

_ " My psychiatrist has suggested that I apologise to everyone I hurt," Natalya continued. "As part of my therapy. That could take a while, I harmed a lot of people. My brother's friends, Saskia, Yao and Li Xiao, Katyusha, not to mention everybody on that plane and the pilot. Katyusha forgives me but I don't think I deserve even that much. I know Eduard doesn't." _

_ " That's understandable," Sergei replied. "Katyusha is his wife and soulmate but he'll forgive you eventually, if only for Katyusha's sake." _

_ " I'm not asking for forgiveness," Natalya said. "Because I know there are some that can't give it. What I want is to tell everyone how sorry I am for everything that I've done and do what I can to makes some kind of amends which is why I asked you to come here." Natalya stopped for a moment to take a breath. _

_ " I wanted to give my apologies to you," she said. "You had to chase me all the way to Canada and I was so very vile to you and even wanted you dead when my heart started beating when I saw you. I want to release you as my soulmate because you can't possibly want to be stuck with someone as mentally broken and pathetic as I am." Sergei did not know what to think about that. Yes, Natalya had done some truly terrible things, things that even he found repellent but being released was not an option anyway. Soulmates were for life but, if this version of Natalya was real and not some trick, it might not be so bad. _

_ " Thank you for the offer," he replied. "But it doesn't work like that. We're soulmates and that can't just be cancelled and besides, I don't think your father would let us off the hook so easily. We need to find a way to make this work, if you're willing." _

_ " But what if I slip?" Natalya said. "What if I regress and go back to being murderous obsessed with Ivan again? I know it's wrong now but I'm taking medication to managed my condition so what if I forget to take it? Or adapt to it so it's no longer effective? I may have to take the medication for the rest of my life." _

_ " I'll make sure you take it," Sergei replied. "And the doctor will be watching for signs of immunity to the medication. It's going to be a part of your life no matter what happens, whether I'm in your life or not." _

_ " Why would you want to be a part of my life?" Natalya looked down in shame. "You can't possibly like me." _

_ " I didn't like the other Natalya," Sergei said, honestly. "The one in front of me, if she's real, I think I can deal with." Natalya let the hint that she might be pretending slide. After all, it had been one of the weapons in her arsenal when she was escaping her father's custody to pursue Ivan to Canada so it was reasonable that everyone might believe that she was merely pretending to be what they wanted her to be in order to get away from them and go after Ivan again but she was not pretending. As much as she hated being on constant medication, it had cleared her head and the therapy sessions had picked through the complicated threads of her mental state and shown her the truth of everything in her life. She had been obsessive, monstrous and murderously dangerous and she never wanted to go back to that but there was one thing that bothered her. _

_ " Could you ever want to spend your life with someone you don't and can't possibly love?" she asked. Sergei lifted her chin with his hand so he could look in her eyes. _

_ " I can't say I love you now," he said, candidly. "Because I don't and you can't say you love me right now but I make no promises for the future. We're soulmates that haven't had the best start together, if fact we've had one of the worst but we are soulmates. Who knows what our future feelings will be so we have to work with the hand we're dealt and see what the future holds for us." _

_ " You seem willing to take that chance." _

_ " It's take that chance or be alone," Sergei pointed out. "And alone isn't what I want. Do you?" Natalya impulsively wrapped her arms around Sergei and held him tight. _

_ " No," she replied as Sergei put his arms around her. _

_ " Then let's see what the future has in store!" _

 

Natalya was glad Sergei had taken the chance, not that he seemed to believe that he had had much choice but, as time went on and Natalya's saner and real self emerge, she saw Sergei for what he really was. He had a ruthless streak but that was a given, working for her father did that to a person because they were required to do some questionable things sometimes, subordinate, soldier, part-time assassin when required, and make some hard choices but he had a softer side that he rarely showed but he had shown it to her as they got to know each other and Sergei had seen the woman Natalya might have been if things had not gone so wrong for her. As she recovered more and more, she began to help care for the other patients in the institution, showing that she had a caring soul and had a great capacity for love, although her mental condition had twisted her love for her brother into something immoral and obscene. He felt sorry for her because she still loved her brother but now it was the kind of love it was meant to be but Ivan would not come close enough to see it, understandable under the circumstances, giving what Natalya had put him and his family through but still, it was sad.

Love had grown between the two and Natalya was happy for the first time since before her mother died and finally, she was declared sane enough to be released from the institution. It had been hard for her to readjust to being back in her home after more than a year in mental care and she had missed so much. Her brother's wedding for one (not that she had been invited, even if she had been able to leave the institution). She was still in her delusion of Yao being some black-hearted sorcerer with her brother in his spell then so it was just as well that she could not go. But with the help of her father and Sergei, Natalya had settled into a routine and back into public life.

Then, finally, Sergei proposed.

_ He had taken her to a nearby park on a day that was pleasantly warm and children were running around with their parents watching over them. A breeze kept the trees swaying and flowers were blooming, casting their scent around as Natalya and Sergei passed, filling Natalya with a calming, content feeling of a normal day, unaware that it was not going to be a normal day for very long. Sergei steered Natalya on to one of the paths that lead to secluded walks, usually for courting couples or those that just wanted to be alone and they strolled until they came to an bench beside a fountain and sat down. There were no people around and Sergei decided that this was the time. _

_ " Natalya," he said. "There's something I want to ask you. Given the rough start that we've had and everything you've had to go through to get to this point, you might have reservations about this but ….." He stopped and took a velvet box out of his pocket and opened it. Inside was a gold ring with a large blue sapphire, surrounded small white diamonds that glinted in the sun-light. Sergei was worried about Natalya's reaction. He wanted this now, more than anything but she was still unsure about how she would be in the future so maybe he should have waited but he had begun so the only thing he could do was finish what he had started and hope for the best. Natalya's eyes widened when she saw the ring and she brought her hands up to cover her mouth stop herself from squealing and tears filled her eyes. _

_ " Natalya Arlovskaya," he said, presenting her with the ring. "Will you, my soulmate, do me the honour of being my wife?" _

By this time, it had been the one question Natalya had been wanting to hear, although Sergei had to convinced her that he was asking of his own accord and not because her father was encouraging it but once he had, she said 'Yes' at once.

Which had lead to her sister now helping her into her wedding dress, a simple elegant affair with just enough decoration and trimming to stop it from being too plain. Katyusha then changed into her bridesmaid dress which was a light blue and began putting the finishing touches to their hair and make-up. Just as Katyusha was setting Natalya's veil into her hair, General Arlovsky came to say that the wedding car had arrived.

Dmitri stared at his daughter with wonder and a little bit of pride. Wonder because Natalya resembled her mother, just as Ivan did but Natalya even more so while his step-daughter resembled her own father, and pride because of how Natalya had battled her illness, was still battling it and winning, like a true Arlovsky. Of course, there was always the chance of relapse but, right now, Natalya's mental state was as close to normal as it could get and Dmitri loved her as she was now.

"You look so much like your mother," he said with a hint of softness, rarely heard in General Winter's voice. Although Natalya and Ivan's mother had not been his soulmate, he had loved her very much and he had hidden his aching heart when her mirror image's mental health began to decline. It was in memory of his late wife that he had been reluctant to commit Natalya to a institution as she got worse, a mistake he fully admitted but now Natalya was better, he could see traces of his late wife's personality in Natalya, considerate and caring of those around her and knew that this was how Natalya should have been all along.

" _ Thank you, Otets _ " she said in Russian. All the General Arlovsky's children could speak Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. Katyusha's father had been Ukrainian while her, Natalya and Ivan's mother had been Belarusian but Natalya chose to answer her father in his native language.

"You have made me proud, this last year," he said and kissed her on her forehead. "You've had your demons to fight and you've fought them well, like a true Arlovsky. The sad part is now you'll soon give up that name but I am very, very proud."

"I'll always be an Arlovskaya, Otets," Natalya replied, touching her heart. "In here." Dmitri smiled and hugged his daughter, careful not to wrinkle her dress and when they part, Katyusha, also smiling, gave her her wedding bouquet of white roses, glittering with crystals and dotted with Baby's Breath and small, pale blue cornflowers to match Katyusha's dress.

"Time to change your name," Dmitri said, holding out his arm to Natalya who took it and they left the family home to the wedding car with Katyusha following, with one question in Natalya's head.

_ Will he be there? _

* * *

Sergei stood at the end of the aisle near the altar with Eduard in charcoal grey wedding suits and people were filling up the pews, distant family, associates, a few friends as, in Sergei's profession, it was rare to make friends and Natalya's situation had driven most people away but enough people attended so the church did not look empty. Sergei kept looking around at the people coming in and it amused Eduard. Was he hoping or dreading Natalya coming through the door? Eduard knew he should stop being so hard on Natalya, for Katyusha's sake at least, after all Natalya was ill at the time, but every time he saw Natalya, he saw his soulmate and wife lying on the floor of Ivan's home with Yao trying to stem the flow of blood from the bullet wound in Katyusha's shoulder and he could not bring himself to show any kind of warm feeling to Natalya. Hopefully, it would get better with time.

"Ready to run for the hills," he said to Sergei, teasing. "I know Ivan did." Sergei turned to Eduard to stare at him for a moment and then walked to a side door and out of the church, to the astonishment of his future brother-in-law.

"I was just joking," he said.

* * *

 The car arrived at the church and General Arlovsky left the car first when the driver opened the door, turning to help Natalya out with Katyusha helping her with the train of her dress, making sure it did not get caught on anything and potentially tear and then she followed her little sister out of the car to straighten the skirt up and pulling the veil down over Natalya's face. When Katyusha was finished, Natalya walked into the church on the arm of her father, followed by Katyusha, praying that he would be there.

Inside the church itself, the first chords of the music to which the bride enters was sounded and Natalya and her father began to walked down the aisle as she looked around. Where was he? There was no sign of him. Natalya's heart dropped as she realised that he was not there. She and her father finished the walk to the end of the aisle where he handed her over to Sergei who was stood next to Eduard waiting for his bride. Natalya gave a small smile under the veil at her fiancé, soon to be husband as he looked down at her with an encouraging smile.

The ceremony began but Natalya could not have described any of it, despite giving the right responses in the right places but the one thing she remembered was saying 'I do!' and officially became Mrs Mikhaylov. Sergei lifted Natalya's veil and bent down to kiss his bride to the applause of everyone in the church. As they made their way back down the aisle, Natalya noticed some people who had not been sat there when she walked down the aisle.

Ivan sat in the back pew with his husband, Yao who looked at her, warily as she came toward them, understandable considering their history and beside them sat Li Xiao, who looked less than thrilled to be there, with a young Asian girl with brown hair, decorated with pink flowers to match the pink top she wore with a long white skirt, his soulmate, Mei who he had met at college. Sergei smiled at the little family, remembering his last minute phone call to make sure that Ivan was coming after all the hard persuasion everyone had put in to convince Ivan and Yao that it was safe to attend the wedding and, even at the last minute, it was touch and go but the Braginski family unbent enough to take the risk and Ivan could see what his sister had become now and the look on Natalya's face said it all. Natalya's eyes had filled with tears of joy at seeing Ivan at her wedding, at the fact that he had forgiven her enough for this and she hoped for the chance to prove to him that she could be the sister she always should have been but, for now, this was enough.

Her brother had come to her wedding!

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A family reconciliation.....or, at least the beginning of one.

**Author's Note:**

> Natalya has more than her fair share of wedding jitters.


End file.
